Wunderkind
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: Takes place during the Black saga in DB supers. Trunks had a secret that he refrained from telling anyone while on his trip to the future. 1) he was a father. 2) he had a daughter and the moment he died at the hands of his new enemy Black, she just became everyone else's problem. Or did she? What's up with Piccolo and why is he so protective of the damaged princess? please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

It was raining. That was about the only real thing that he really noticed aside from the unconscious form carefully cradled in his arms and the searing pain that was shooting all up and down his body.

He still couldn't believe that those irresponsible bastards had done this. His mind was still reeling from the shock, he supposed. But then they were only human- completely different from him.

He was half human, half saiyan.

All warrior.

And right now he was so incredibly pissed off at the world that if not for the constant reminder of the young girl that he carried- along with the pain and blood loss he was currently suffering from his wounds- he might have actually done something reckless.

Like go off the deep end and blow up the goddamn planet.

Lord knew that he had been so enraged upon his return to the rebel base where he had learned of what the people there had done to his daughter.

I mean really, how _dare_ they hand her over to Black in the desperate hope that he just might let them live. The man was a sadist and a monster in the truest sense of the word.

The state that he had found his daughter in just a little while ago spoke volumes as to the man's character, or lack thereof.

He had found his daughter, Shizuru lying on the floor of Black's hideout in the mountains- in chains, naked, bleeding, covered in so many deep gashes and cuts and bruises that he would be surprised her skin wasn't permanently stained multi colored from the painful experience that she had suffered at Blacks hands.

As it was he wouldn't be alive long enough to see to it that she was properly cared for so that she could get past the pain of what had happened. He knew it because he could feel his life slipping away. And maybe that was for the best now- he no longer had any desire to fight for the cursed creatures that had betrayed him and his precious daughter to the enemy just to save themselves.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat as he shifted one of his big hands to brush back a few strands of her long dark hair. Carefully tucking the wet strands of silk behind one of her shell like ears.

 _God._ He breathed as he closed his eyes for a moment in an effort to stave off passing out. He had been such a failure as a father.

He had of course blamed part of that fact on him having been thirteen when he had entered the breeding program. And out of all of the children that he had sired, Shizuru had been the only one not to die of complications, illness, starvation and so on.

And while he had been present for her birth, he hadn't been allowed to stay and bond with her. Probably because of the fact that later on down the line there had been a minute chance that he would be paired with her for breeding purposes.

He hadn't liked that. But he had understood that with the human race on the brink of extinction- he could do nothing about it.

Attempting to breed with anyone but the person you were paired with always ended badly via fighting, murder, rape and all around general human brand of violence that he had grown up exposed too.

And then when Shizuru's mother had died a year in a half after her birth, no one had bothered to let him know. In fact he had lost track of her for almost eight years. After which he found out that her mother had died of cancer and Shizuru had simply vanished off of the face of the earth.

Something that should have been impossible for someone who had had a microchip installed under her skin as an infant just so she _could_ be tracked.

After that he had spent eight long, _miserable_ , and unsettling years trying to find out where she was. What she was doing. If she was happy.

The truth of her situation, once he had found out about it, had been horrific beyond even his imaginings. And each one of the bastards that had hurt his little girl had died screaming for the damage that they had done to her. But by then it had almost been too late.

Shizuru, his precious little girl had been totally convinced that she wasn't human. That she deserved to be hurt by those sick and twisted people.

She had asked him to hurt her a few times when he had first brought her home- his stomach still twisted itself into knots whenever he recalled the event.

She had still been so sweet and innocent despite the pain inflicted upon her that she hadn't understood that it wasn't right for her to ask him, her very own father, to hurt her in the fashion that she had asked. She hadn't understood when he had hugged her and told her that _nothing_ that had happened was her fault, she shouldn't think such things.

No one would ever hurt her again, he had promised.

And up until a few days ago he had managed to keep that promise. But those damn cowards at the rebel base had made a liar out of him.

And since he couldn't trust those he had once called his 'friends' to take care of his daughter, he had planned to do the only thing that he could. He would send her back to the past. To his young mother and father using the time machine that had been built for him, in the hopes that his father and mother would take care of his little girl.

He cared not for any other outcome but her safety and protection.

Rage fired his blood once again as he thought of how Shizuru must have cried and screamed for him to come and help her only to be silenced by Black's mocking voice. Tightening his arms around her body a little bit, he none too gracefully got to his feet and began to stagger forward.

He didn't have much farther to go before he would reach the time machine. And once he did...Shizuru would be free of this miserable place and he could finally die knowing that he had done right by her for once.

Half walking, half stumbling the rest of the mile long trek to where he had hidden the time machine, he felt only a vague sense of relief in finding it still in one piece.

Setting Shizuru down not far from him, he went to work on uncovering the device so that he could set everything. After all there was no point in sending her away if she would only end up minutes, hours, weeks, months or maybe even a year or two from the present date.

His body was growing heavy and cumbersome in it's movements, but he somehow managed to do what was needed before he went and picked his daughter up again. Vaguely noting this time that he barely had any real strength left to lift her up into his arms and carry her as he had been.

Swallowing thickly, he carefully- well okay- perhaps not as carefully as he should have given his waning strength, placed her inside of the time machine and pressed the button that would send her far, far away from him and felt a strange sense of peace settle over him as he fell back away from the machine as it began to glow and move up into the sky above him.

He never really registered the fact that he was now laying flat on his back staring up at the stormy sky where the machine had just been. Nor did he register the fact that he was laying in a pool of his own blood.

He felt numb, drained- his heart beat and lungs slowing even as a familiar face crossed his sight.

It was Black, he noted with a peculiar sense of satisfaction as he gazed up at him with partially unfocused eyes as a small smile tugged at his lips.

"Where is she?" Black demanded.

Trunks said nothing, he doubted that he had the strength left to speak anyways. Everything was darkening. Which was probably why he didn't notice Black send a furious look his way before muttering, "Fine. I'll find her on my own." Before he sent a powerful ki blast right at Trunk's head.

Killing him instantly.


	2. Chapter 2

Bulma was trailing behind her son and his little delinquent friends to see what the kids were sneaking around for when all hell suddenly broke loose.

And by all hell- she meant, _all_ fucking hell.

The once clear sky turned blindingly white and the non existent wind chose that exact moment to form a mini hurricane in her back yard over by the gazebo. Just where she had last seen her eight year old son and his friends.

Screaming the children's names as she put her hands up to help block out that strangely brilliant light, she heard the sound of something heavy falling and heard all of the kids but her son screaming in fear before everything suddenly and abruptly seemed to calm.

Blinking her eyes at the strangeness of the occurrence, she slowly began to drop her arms back to her side so that she could check on the kids- her mind quickly dismissing the incident when she suddenly saw just what it was that had caused the odd occurrence.

There just barely a hundred feet of her was her future son's time machine.

The blasted thing was covered in ice and one of the legs had broken, causing the machine to topple over onto it's side, the dome like hatch at the top was partially cracked and broken with a strange mist like substance leaking from out of it. Feeling the bottom suddenly drop out of her stomach, she tried to think of a possible answer as to why her future son had returned when it hit her like a ton of bricks.

Something else must have happened and he had come back to the past looking for help. Unless of course...it wasn't him in there but someone or something else.

 _Like Cell._ The terrifying thought slithered through her mind, chilling her blood in her veins when she suddenly heard her young son shout. "Hey!" She jumped a little bit and quickly took a moment to locate him. _Crap, crap, crap, crap-_ She'd forgotten about him. How was she supposed to explain to an eight year old that she and her husband had met his future self around the time he had been born? "There's someone in there!" Trunks called out again as he pointed to the time machine's cockpit.

"Get away from there!" Bulma yelled at him, her heart pounding in fear as she neared the machine and grabbed her dumbfounded son by the scruff of the neck and yanked him away from the machine before anything bad could happen. Or at leas that was how she felt about it at the moment as she slowly turned half of her attention to the kids and told them to go inside and get into the panic room.

All four sets of eyes blinked up at her in confusion before she screamed, "I said now dammit!" Causing each of the kids to jump and run away screaming. Hopefully straight into the panic room that she had installed after the whole androids incident.

It wouldn't protect anyone from creatures like Majin Buu, but it served it's own purposes. Besides if anything android related ever happened again at least she, her family and friends would be okay. She had made sure that the place was fully stocked with enough food, water, and medical supplies to live for quite some time if one counted a few thousand years or so as 'quite some time'.

Mentally shaking herself and returning to the problem at hand, she reached for the cell phone that Whis had given to her after altering it so that she could speak to her husband and Goku should something important arise, and flicked it open and pressed the number one.

Hoping that the two idiots weren't so wrapped up in their training with the god of destruction that they would answer.

(*********************************************************************************************************************************************)

Piccolo stood with Mr. Popo next to Dende's bed watching as the young guardian of the earth writhed and cried in pain. He didn't know what was wrong or what was causing the younger Namekian such distress but he figured that whatever was happening had something to do with the boy's latent psychic abilities since he had collapsed after feeling something strange occur down on Earth.

Piccolo had of course, been understandably upset since he was one of the boy's protectors.

He thought of Dende as another young Gohan, always running around and getting into mischief. And of course the boy always supported him in his emotional endeavors as well as the _other_ ones.

Like the time he had decided to try this whole 'mid life crisis' thing that everyone was always bitching about.

Sure, he'd wound up making an ass out of himself. But he didn't mind all that much since he wound up with one bitchin hover bike and a nice leather jacket once he was done making a fool out of himself.

And of course Dende hadn't laughed at him during that time... _much_. In fact he had been very sensitive towards Piccolo's curiosity. After all, he had literally lived hundreds of years apart from Kami. And then once he had fused with him again he had not only gained his emotions, knowledge, skills and everything else, but even more overwhelming urges and such.

Which he occasionally took out on the sayins. And even more occasionally, Mr. popo's garden, and Earth's crowded streets.

None of which were neither here nor there at the moment since he had other things to worry about.

Finally after what seemed like forever watching Dende thrash and cry out in pain, the boy gradually began to calm and finally fell into a deep regenerative sleep.

"Piccolo?" Mr. Popo said questioningly as the tall Namekian began to head for the door. Pausing only for a brief moment to look back at the two.

"I'm going to go and find the source of Dende's distress. I'll return once I find it and figure out what the hell happened."


	3. Chapter 3

Piccolo was more than half way through his trip to the city to see if Bulma or anyone else had sensed or experienced anything when he felt a powerful, familiar ki closing in on him from the far west where the mountains that Goku and his family resided in, stood.

Turning his head a little bit, he glanced over at his former student, Son Gohan. "Do you have any idea what the hell is happening?" He asked after a moment or so. His rough, rumbling voice catching and holding the young demi saiyan's attention.

Dark grey eyes met emerald for a moment as Gohan replied, "I got a call from Trunks a few minutes ago. He totally freaking out because something that sounds an awful lot like future Trunk's time machine has appeared and looks to be in bad shape. He said that someone or something was still inside of the thing, but his mom didn't want to risk opening it until someone got there. My bet is that he's called Krillian, dad, and Vegita over by now too. Is that why your down here?"

Piccolo took a moment to absorb the information before slowly shaking his head no and saying, "Something has managed to latch onto Dende's mind and is broadcasting enough pain and agony to physically injure him. I want to know what it is and do something about it before it does irreparable damage."

Gohan visibly paled at the thought of the young Namekian that he called his friend being in any sort of trouble. Much less pain.

"Geez, no wonder you look so pissed that you could actually give Vegita a ran for his money." Gohan muttered, causing Piccolo to shoot him a glare that had the young man nervously fidgeting under the look that he was being given before he asked awkwardly, "How is Dende holding up?"

"Oh he's loving the mental link between himself and someone or something else. So much so that he's finally passed out." Piccolo said sarcastically.

The words, _And that's the only goddamn reason that I'm here,_ hung unsaid between them as they continued to fly to Capsul Corp where they met up with Krillian, Goku and Vegita before they descended to the ground where Krillian, Goku and Gohan took off running towards the back of the building where they could hear a huge commotion.

Piccolo walked in silence beside Vegita as they walked around one of the larger cluster of buildings to find Bulma standing there waiting on them while she continued to yell at Trunks and the other kids for directly disobeying her orders and _not_ going into the panic room like she had said they should.

Trunks was attempting to argue back that she was scaring him and the others when Vegita stepped into his sight and _glared_ at the boy before practically shouting, "If your mother tells you to do something, you do it! Not later- now!"

Causing Bulma and Trunks to abruptly stop screaming at each other and for Trunks to automatically tear up, sniffle and then shout at his dad before flying off back in the direction of the building as the prince made his way over to his wife un phased by his young son's hurtful words and came to a stop next to Bulma as she growled out.

"Damn stupid kid is going to get himself _and_ the rest of us all killed one day..." Vegita said nothing. But then he rarely did when his woman was in a snit.

He'd learned the hard way when she had become pregnant with their son that sometimes silence was best. Much like making no sudden movements, breathing ect. Especially since the likelihood of her turning her ire on him was significantly high.

And frankly he couldn't afford the bruises at this point since his new training with the god of destruction, his assistant Whis, and Goku was more than painful enough without the added hassle.

Watching as both Gohan and Goku moved around the machine that Gohan had admitted was possibly future Trunk's. Goku took a moment to crouch down and peer through the broken dome top of the time machine and frowned when he saw long black hair.

"Hey Bulma, Vegita- Unless Trunks was suddenly possibly changed into someone sort of...girly... Then that isn't your son in there." Goku said as he rested his elbow on one of his legs and propped his chin in his hand as the two parents walked over.

"If it isn't Trunks, then who is it?" Bulma asked with a worried look.

Gohan dropped down to the ground next to his dad and carefully pushed his hand through the broken glass and none too gently pulled the top off of the machine so that they could see more easily who was inside of the cockpit.

Bulma and Vegita bent down a little bit to peer inside, but the person was blocked from view almost instantly by Goku as he turned his head to Bulma and said, "Bulma, get a medic down here."

Blinking at the oddly serious note that she detected in his voice as he reached inside of the time machine and carefully pulled the passenger out and laid them- no wait- she could clearly see long black hair covered in melting ice. Pale alabaster skin littered with multiple bruises and faint traces of blood, and her eyes went wide as Vegita automatically pushed her behind him and moved in closer before letting out a loud rumbling growl of rage at what he both saw and could subtly smell on the stranger.

"Vegita?"

"Hurry and call the medic woman."

"But what-"

"No buts, do it now! The girl is in need of attention!"


	4. Chapter 4

A few hours later, Piccolo found himself sitting in Bulma's large sitting room with Vegeta, Gohan and Goku trying to keep his cool because they were thinking so loud that each of their chaotic thoughts was starting to hurt him.

Honestly, he knew that whatever had happened to the young female that they had found had been- well, _beyond_ bad- but he simply didn't understand why Bulma and the Sayian's were acting like they were.

Gohan looked so pissed that his expression rivaled that of Vegeta's. And that was a truly horrifying sight to behold considering how pissed the prince was.

But that was nothing compared to Goku who, for all outward appearances seemed calm, but his mind was a caldron of seething hatred and rage the likes of which made simply being near him difficult for Piccolo since he was dangerously close to losing what little bit of food and water was currently resting within his stomach.

It was obvious that his friends were angry. Even more so that they wished they knew who had injured the unknown female so badly so that they could rip the SOB limb from limb.

Which Piccolo supposed at this point was totally justifiable.

Looking up at the clock, Piccolo noted the time that had passed since Bulma had called for a doctor to come to her residence to help with the girl that had been pulled from the time machine, only to discover that it had been almost four hours since the blue haired woman had disappeared with the doctor and what few medical staff her family employed here at Capsule Corp.

Sighing because he knew he needed to ask someone _something_ at some point so that he could understand just what the hell was going on, Piccolo left his secluded corner of the room and slowly made his way over to Gohan- hoping that he would be the most understanding of his questions.

Gohan looked up from glaring at the floor the moment that he saw Piccolo's shoes come into his line of vision and knew what he wished to know. And while it was somewhat aggravating to speak/explain of the horrors the girl had probably experienced to his former master, Gohan understood that as a male and a Namekian, Piccolo simply didn't understand certain things. And so became curious to know as much about them as possible- almost like a child would.

And while that was certainly understandable, Gohan had no real wish to rehash the girl's wounds and how she had gotten them with someone who may or may not possibly understand.

Piccolo opened his mouth to ask but Gohan cut him off in a scathing tone, "Piccolo don't ask. Open up a link with your mind and you'll know why we're so upset." Piccolo closed his mouth and nodded slightly as he opened the mind link between himself and Gohan and almost fell under the on slot of unimaginable horror/anger that he felt through the link.

The information was detailed. _Very detailed_. So much so that it was almost as if the link he was sharing with his beloved friend/former student belonged to someone else. Someone with a sick and diseased mind.

After getting all of the information deemed necessary From Gohan, Piccolo shut down the mind link and backed away from his former student at the exact moment that Bulma came walking back into the room wearing a bloody pair of gloves, and pale blue clothes and a mask. Her shoulder length aqua colored hair had been stuffed up underneath a cap of some sort and her complexion was pale.

"Bulma." Vegeta said softly, somehow managing to reign in his rage as he looked at his wife.

She was shaking somewhat as she pulled off the cap, mask, and gloves and threw them down in a careless manner as she moved over to her husband and startled him by pressing herself against him and sobbing.

Uncertain of what to do for a moment, Vegeta looked around, first at Goku then at Gohan and Piccolo before finally wrapping his arms around his crying mate and made a low rumbling sound within his chest in an effort to sooth her. "Bulma- The girl," Vegeta started to ask of the female's condition when Bulma finally managed to pull herself together.

"She's alive... But just barely," Bulma said before going on. "She's suffered multiple fractures, broken ribs, a shoulder and leg had been yanked out of their sockets, she has a cracked collarbone, four skull fractures, internal bleeding in several places-" She stopped speaking for a moment wondering how to bring up the injuries on the girl's wrists and ankles as well as her back.

Sensing her distress, Vegeta tightened his grip on his mate slightly before demanding, "What is it you are having trouble saying woman?"

Blinking her wide blue eyes, Bulma opened and closed her mouth to speak a few times before finally managing to find the words. "I-It's the wounds that were found on both of her wrists and ankles as well as on her back... Vegeta, someone it looked as if someone had been torturing the poor girl for years! And I'm not talking one or two, I mean six or seven- maybe more. Frankly I have no idea how she managed to survive such injuries up until now, they're all just so horrible." Bulma wailed as she buried her face against her husband's chest and began to cry again as Goku, Gohan and Vegeta all exchanged a look and nodded to each other before Goku finally said.

"It'll be okay Bulma."

The blue haired woman sniffled as she slowly turned her head to look at her childhood friend and snapped. "Your damn right it's going to be okay Goku, because I expect every one of you to help me keep the sorry piece of shit that did that to her- away from her! And that includes Krillin, Eighteen, Yamcha, Tien, Goten, Dende and yes, even you Piccolo. Do I make myself clear? I never want to see that poor girl with so much as another bruise!"

All four males bristled slightly at the upset woman's orders, but Vegeta decided to follow them because she could make his life a living hell. Much like Goku and Gohan. Piccolo neither agreed to do as the human woman bid nor did he disagree since he knew how pissed Vegeta would be if he did.

And while that didn't exactly scare him.

The fact that he'd be dragging everyone else into it sort of did.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hey everyone, Babykitsune-9 here.**

 **If anyone is confused about anything that I'm posting, the reasons behind my work or lack-there-of has to do with the death of my adopted mother Velma. She passed away on the 13th and we buried her yesterday.**

 **And while I'm sort of okay with the fact that she isn't here anymore due to how much agony she had to be in with her breast cancer, kidney failure, and of course the broken ribs she got when she was given CPR at the hospital- she _was_ my mom. **

**And I loved her very much.**

 **So I'll write while I can form a coherent sentence, but after that I'll be taking a break for a little bit. My breaks usually aren't long since I'm on Fanfic everyday regardless of whether I'm writing and posting stuff or not.**

 **So here's this chapter. Enjoy.**

(***********************************************************************************************************************************************)

Several days passed after Bulma had taken in the girl that had appeared in the time machine and she was still unconscious. Not that Piccolo minded that much as he shifted his weight ever so slightly in his seat across the room from her bed. He'd pretty much been locked inside of the room with the little female since the other day since Goku and Vegeta had gone off to train some more with the hopes that they could return home in another few days.

Leaving himself and Gohan mainly responsible for the girl's wellbeing.

And while he didn't mind that per say, it would have been nice if he wasn't the only one right now to watch her since Gohan had gone home to tell Videl of what had occurred only to find himself more or less grounded by her.

How _that_ had happened, Piccolo would never understand.

What was with all of these powerful warrior's bending to the will and whims of these tiny, puny little females? Warriors should be stronger than their mates, right?

So why have Goku, Gohan and Vegeta acted so damn scared of Bulma?

Did females have some sort of magic power that he didn't know about? But then up until he had met Goku and started hanging out at his house when Gohan had been a kid, he had never really taken note of females. Sure he knew the difference between male and female genders, he just...well...it just didn't click with him.

In his mind. People were people without genders.

So naturally by the time he started to...uh...notice a few things here and there, he had been thoroughly confused by everything and had made several attempts to ask Goku for information so that he wouldn't be so confused anymore- only to find that Goku knew even less about females than he did.

And Gohan had been a kid, barely even ten years old- so he hadn't felt right saying anything to him. Which had left him with Vegeta to ask.

Now there had been a disaster.

The prince of Sayins had looked at him oddly, said nothing, merely motioned for him to follow him- and then locked him in a spare room with a whole bunch of what he now knew was, well, porn.

Apparently the prince had started collecting after finding something to his liking and had never really stopped. Which in and of itself was more than a little bit disturbing. But not nearly as disturbing as being locked in a room with the shit for several hours while Vegeta waited to let him out on the other side.

Why by the time he was finally free of that damned room and everything in it, Piccolo had almost known what it was like to be a prisoner of war.

He'd seen shit he couldn't unsee!

He'd been so shaken by the experience that upon gaining his freedom Vegeta had promptly asked, "Do you need to know anything else Namekian?"

To which Piccolo had almost snarled at him.

Almost, of course was the operative word since he didn't wish to give the prince another excuse to lock him in that cursed room again.

So now here he was almost twenty two years old and he still had more questions than answers. But at least the female he was locked in the room with was quiet. Even if she was unconscious, she was a far cry better than all the other waspish, shrews everyone else was dating, married/mated too.

As it was he had spent a great deal of time studying the female.

He supposed that she would be considered quite pretty once her injuries were completely healed. But right now her delicate features were nothing more than a mass of various shades of ugly blues, purples, yellows, greens and black. In fact the only thing he could actually see as far as her features went was the shape of her face (heart). The color of her skin where she wasn't injured (ivory). And of course her petite bone structure and her long silken black hair.

Though he could calculate a great deal more just by looking at her.

Her height was about five foot nine inches. Which would put her right around chest level on him. Not too tall yet not too short, in his opinion at least. Her weight was about one hundred and seven. So she was a mite on the thin side. But Bulma would probably fix that.

And if she didn't, Goku and Vegeta would make it their personal challenge to fatten her up a bit.

Getting up from his seat, Piccolo walked over to the bedside and checked the monitors that she was hooked up too knowing that they were important to the girl's survival. Once he was done checking them and making sure that the girl was still hooked up the way that Bulma had showed him the other day, he started to turn to go sit back down when he just happened to glance down at her and very briefly thought he saw her eyes open.

He thought that he had seen teal. Vivid, breathtakingly beautiful, teal.

But when he looked down at her again, her eyes were closed. Leaving him to wonder if perhaps he had imagined her opening her eyes out of boredom or something. Kami knew that it wasn't the first time he had imagined such. He thought in frustration as he walked back over to his previous chair and sat back down again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for the long wait.**

 **I've been working on various things- branching out my writing on Fanfiction, dealing with a shit load of paper work from when my hubby had his stroke last year on the tenth of Dec. And of course preparing for his immediate release from the hospital and trying to figure out ways to make ends meet since I'm disabled and only make about $350.00 monthly and our average living expenses are closer to $700-800 dollars or so monthly.**

 **And Tim currently isn't on SSI or disability.**

 **We've had a terrible time of it so far and I've been so stressed that updates are few and far between. I'm sorry if this makes no sense whatsoever.**

* * *

Piccolo didn't tell anyone about the seeing 'teal' incident since the girl remained asleep and he was fairly certain that he had just imagined her opening her eyes to begin with. So for days after the incident, he, Vegeta, and yes even Gohan and Goku- upon telling their mates of what had occurred and why they were needed- all took turns keeping watch.

One day Piccolo even wound up in the room together with the girl and Vegeta whom was caught red handed fussing with the blanket covering the young female's body. Piccolo was silent as he watched the weird actions displayed by the prince before the Saiyan seemed to realize that he was there.

After which he quickly withdrew from the girl's side, his face beet red, and muttered something about needing to go...kill a rat or something. And then quickly left the room before Piccolo could so much as tease him about what he had been doing.

After all, he had never seen Vegeta act like a mother hen before. Not even for Bulma or his son. So catching him acting the way he had been was _incredibly_ out of character for the normally overly arrogant and self centered prince. And Piccolo couldn't help but wonder if perhaps there was something that they should _all_ be worried about as far as the Saiyan's went.

However after asking Bulma's help in setting up a small experiment where Goku and Gohan were both asked by the namekian to come spend several hours in the room with him, didn't act any odder than usual aside from merely being concerned and protective of the girl, he then dismissed the idea that the girl was somehow doing something to the saiyans since what usually affected one affected them all.

It didn't mean that he wasn't totally unsuspicious of the girl and the affect that she had on Vegeta. But for the moment he'd leave things alone. Besides Bulma was monitoring the room at his request, so he doubted that anything would get past the woman and her technology.

Four days passed since he had caught Vegeta fussing over the girl.

And not much else had happened since then. The girl slept while her body continued to heal. And the few times that she seemed to begin to have nightmares of some kind- Goku, Gohan, himself or Vegeta calmed her by helping her slip into a deeper state of rest.

Goku did it by talking about anything and everything until he ran out of topics and simply became so boring that he started to put himself to sleep. Gohan would read some of his favorite books. Vegeta- strangely enough- sang lullabies. Or it was more like he hummed them.

Whereas Piccolo when he tried to calm her, had to establish a psychic link. The first time that he did so- he was stunned by how quickly a mental wall was slammed up to block his presence. It happened to fast that he was almost literally, physically knocked onto his ass.

And it _hurt_. Gods did it hurt his head.

He'd had to take a little while to recover from that incident. But at least the girl had started resting easier without his interference that time.

The second time...he'd been reluctant to try again. And who could blame him after he had practically been ejected from her mind once already. Still, he couldn't just let her suffer. She was mere moment's away from starting to scream bloody murder.

So he tried again.

This time upon creating a psychic link with her, he found himself standing in a strange place. It was dark and cold, and he could plainly see the girl sitting on a rickety old cot with a threadbare and patch work blanket wrapped partially around her slender shoulders.

She looked much younger than she was in the physical plain. Her dark hair only falling a little bit past her shoulders and her body was very under developed.

Looking away from her for a moment, he took stock of his surroundings- it was a cabin or home of some sort. There were no pictures or personal touches to give him any indication as to whether or not this was where she had grown up or someplace else.

So upon finding no immediate clues, he turned back to her as the door behind her opened and a tall shadowy figure stepped through and kicked the door closed.

What happened next was beyond horrifying. But Piccolo was oddly rooted in place and couldn't seem to think much less move.

He didn't know how long he stood there watching. Feeling as if the very air was being squeezed from his lungs as the girl screamed and cried before finally falling silent and staring blankly ahead. All Piccolo knew was that he wished that this was a memory that he could erase from the girl's damaged mind.

Reaching out, he gently placed the palm of one clawed hand over her eyes and then closed his own and quickly thought of something to take the horror's place. Something good. Something that she likely hadn't had much of in her very short life.

 _Puppies, kittens, flowers, rainbows, magic dragons and wishes-_

He built the image in his mind and held onto it firmly so that he could easily yank her out of her nightmare and place her inside of it. He built the image of a field of wild flowers, not just one kind but all kinds- next to a waterfall and a stream with a small rainbow.

And there were puppies and kittens of all kinds frolicking in the field. And then once he was done building onto the image in his head he quickly yanked her from her nightmare and dropped her into the new place where he decided that he would sit at the top of the waterfall and watch her.

So calmed almost instantly, there he could sense her state of confusion as she looked around the field and took note of the various things before finally sitting down among the flowers and picking up a fluffy black kitten and a small puppy and cuddled them both, causing Piccolo's lips to quirk ever so slightly as he continued to watch over her even in the realm of dreams.


End file.
